This collection of travel essays is Patrick Holland’s first non-fiction work. His second novel The Mary Smokes Boys was long-listed for the 2011 Miles Franklin, shortlisted for The Age Book of the Year (Fiction) and highly recommended by Readings’ Martin Shaw. A devotee of minimalism, Holland’s prose is sparse yet evocative and very beautiful; his writing leaves space for the reader to fill in their own imagining of a scene or a place.

Holland’s ten years experience travelling and studying in the East inform his essays and he takes us through Japan, Vietnam and China, as well as many metaphysical places in-between. The first essay (which takes its name from the title of the collection) sees Patrick in a predicament: he’s arrived in Kyoto at the start of a three-day Buddhist festival which honours the spirits of one’s ancestors and thus there is no room at any inn in town. Unperturbed, he checks his luggage into a coin locker, buys a ticket for the shinkansen (300 km/h bullet train) and travels the near 400km distance to and fro between Kyoto and Tokyo through the nights and days for the duration of the religious holiday.

Patrick’s intrepid spirit makes for some marvellous travel tales, which are also humble reflections on how to live and what place there is for faith in the modern world. The fascinating rendering of the traditional juxtaposed with the modern in the first story continues throughout the collection.

The fact that it is non-fiction and travel writing might discourage, but Riding the Trains in Japan is far more remarkable than either of these genres might suggest – and it is not just for Japanophiles like myself. Reading Riding the Trains in Japan is a meditative experience, and I found much more to contemplate once I put the book down.

Ingrid Josephine is marketing & events assistant at Readings